If you choose lobster from a menu, then wherever you are in the world, the odds are that your dinner may have come from Arichat in Nova Scotia. The lobster, trapped off the Canadian coast, would have been driven to Louisville, Kentucky, where, cocooned in gel packs and styrofoam, it went for a wild ride on the carousels of the UPS superhub, where 17,000 high-speed conveyor belts, carrying more than 8m packages a week, whisk your living lobster to a plane and on onto tables across the globe. John McPhee’s new book is about supply lines: how a lobster shares a conveyor belt with Bentley spare parts and jockey underwear. It is about boats, trains and trucks, but mostly it is about the people who drive, tend and love the machines. Don Ainsworth owns an 18-wheeler with “a tractor of such dark sapphire that only bright sunlight could bring forth its colour.“ To wash his truck Mr. Ainsworth uses only water that has either been de-ionised or has undergone reverse-osmosis; anything else leaves spots. “This is as close as a man will ever know“, he says, “what it feels like to be a truly gorgeous woman. People give us looks, going thumbs up.“ He carries chemicals all across North America where his enemies are gators, bears and four-wheelers.’ Gators are huge strips of shredded tyre littering the highways and just one of them “can rip off your fuel-crossover line“. A bear is a policeman, while a four-wheeler is any vehicle that has fewer than 18 wheels. They buzz around like gnats, seemingly unaware that a real vehicle, one with 18 wheels or more, cannot stop on a dime. The Billy Joe Bolingis a towboat which, perversely, pushes 15 barges up the Illinois River. The barges carry 30,000 tons of pig-iron, steel, coils, fertiliser and furnace coke. Lashed together with steel cables which are then tightened with cheater bars, the Billy Joe Bolingshoves forward a metal raft that is longer than an aircraft carrier. Along the way, the captain copes with bridges, locks, currents, shoals, winter ice 18 inches thick and summer ladies flashing at him. “ We brought 12,000 tons of coke up the Illinois River,“ the skipper tells the author, “and now we’re pushing 14,000 tons of coke down the Illinois River. One day they’ll figure it out and put us out of a job.“ The bosses also want to put the drivers of the coal train out of a job. They dream of automated trains running endlessly along the 1,800 miles between the strip-mines of the Powder River Basin and Georgia’s Plant Scherer, the world’s largest coal-fired power station. A mile-and-half long train has 133 gondolas, each of which carries 115 tons of coal, and the whole trainload will keep Plant Scherer burning for just eight hours. This book will keep you much longer. It is Mr. McPhee at his wise, wry best, writing in top gear which, as Mr Ainsworth will tell you, is the 18th: “the going home gear, the smoke hole“.

Carbon monoxide, funned by the incomplete combustion of some carbonaceous material, has been a ______ to humans since the domestication of fire. hazard dispute docile boost

The house by the sea had a mysterious air of ______ about it. melancholy serenity serioso retroject

A static technocratic order, by contrast, requires a very different sort of personality: a drone who does what he is told and shuns novelty, someone who avoids facing, or ______ challenges. composing proposing imposing posing

His story of rescuing ten drowning men totally by himself was ______. wonderful incredible indignant immense

The individual TV viewer invariably senses that he or she is ______ an anonymous, statistically insignificant part of a huge and diverse audience. everything except anything but no less than nothing more than

Even though formidable winters are the norm in the Dakotas, many people were unprepared for the ______ of the blizzard of 1888. inevitability ferocity probability mildness

The ______ of smoking among women, formerly negligible, has grown to such a degree that lung cancer has become the chief causer of cancer-related deaths among women. affluence ferociousness impudence incidence

If you ______ your demand, then maybe you will have more chance of getting the job you want. lessen alleviate moderate degenerate

It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marveling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him would he but translate his visions into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy had done so never. She was no dazzling execultante; nor was she the passionate young lady, who performs so tragically on a summer’s evening with the window open. Passion was there, but it could not be easily labeled. And she was tragical only in the sense that she was great, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what and over what-that is more than the words of daily life can tell us. But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy had decided that they should triumph. A very wet afternoon at the Pension Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few people lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she made no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of Miss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor Miss Lavish looking for her book. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere feel of the notes. Mr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered over this illogical element in Lucy Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge Wells when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments where the upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with a respectful audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of this parish, under the auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the drawings of a champagne cork. Among the promised items was ’Miss Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven’, and Mr. Deebe was wondering whether it would be ’Adelaida’, or the march of ’The Ruins of Athens’, when his composure was disturbed by the opening bars of Opus III. He was in suspense all through the introduction for not until the pace quickens does one know what the performer intends. With the roar of the opening theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily; in the chords that herald the conclusion he heard the hammer strokes of victory. He was glad that she only played the first movement, for he could have paid no attention to the winding intricacies of the measure of nine-sixteen. The audience clapped, no less respectful. It was Mr Bebee who started the stamping; it was all that one could do. ’Who is she?’ He asked the vicar afterwards. Cousin of one of my parishioner. I do not consider her choice of a piece happy Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal that it is sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if anything disturbs. When he was introduced, Mr. Beebe realized. that Miss Honeychurch, disjoined from her music-stool, was only a young lady with a very pretty, pale, underdeveloped face. She loved going to concerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee and meringues. But before he left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he now made to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved dreamily towards him. If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting—both for us and for her.

There is only time to ______ the plan and we will discuss it in detail next week. decry eliminate expound adumbrate

While this healthy lifestyle approach to health worked for some (the wealthy members of society), people experiencing poverty, unemployment or little control ______ the conditions of their daily lives benefited little from this approach. to into on over

Research into the validity of selection methods has consistently shown that the unstructured interview, ______ the interviewer asks any questions he or she likes, is a poor predictor of future job performance. whomever when whenever where

What a sad sight, with all the shops ______ and the people gone. shuttled shuttered shuttles shutters

Although he suffered from discrimination, Martin Luther King is a man who believed in reconciliation and only rarely ______ a grudge during his Civil Rights movement. he carried did he carry when he carried that he carried

The committee members resented ______ them of the meeting. the president that he did not tell the president not to inform the president’s not informing the president that he failed informing

My tutor frequently reminds me to ______ myself of every chance to improve my English. avail inform assure notify

It’s a modern city, full of ______ tower block. rising heaving ascending soaring

The author took a ______ approach to the topic.He presented both sides of the issue evenhandedly and did not let his own feelings intrude. dispassionate passionate disputable contesting

The path follows the river closely, occasionally ______ round a clump of trees. diverting diverging deviating deflecting

They ______ so tired if they ______ for a whole day. wouldn’t feel, didn’t walk wouldn’t feel, weren’t walking wouldn’t be feeling, weren’t walking wouldn’t be feeling, hadn’t been walking

What is the relationship between lobsters and the subject matter of this essay?

Why do people give Don Ainsworth thumbs up?

What does the author mean by “a real vehicle, one with 18 wheels or more, cannot stop on a dime“?

Why do the bosses want to put the drivers of the coal trains out of a job?

What does Mr. Ainsworth mean by “the 18th gear“?